Staffordshire Hoard: Three-year touring exhibition begins

A three-year touring exhibition about the discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard has been launched.

The hoard comprises more than 1,500 Anglo-Saxon items found by a metal detectorist buried on a farm in Staffordshire in July 2009.

The collection was subsequently valued at £3.3m and is now owned by Birmingham City Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

The exhibition has been paid for by £47,000 of Heritage Lottery Funding.

It will tour various community venues across the West Midlands for three years and “tell the story” of the discovery of the hoard using replica items and video footage.

Really, I don’t see the point of this. There’s very little about the details of the discovery to interest the general public. Bloke wanders around muddy fields with a metal detector for 20 years and eventually strikes lucky. The “muddy fields” and “20 years” bits will be glossed over but more plonkers will buy cheap detectors from Ebay and go out detecting illegally. Great.

Staffordshire Hoard: Three-year touring exhibition begins

Gold Thor’s Hammer Pendant found in Lincolnshire

A metal detecting enthusiast has discovered a rare gold Viking pendant – the only one of its kind to be discovered in Lincolnshire.

Devin Wormsleycorr, from Spilsby, is now awaiting confirmation through the Treasure Act after discovering the piece in February.

He made the discovery in the first 10 minutes while metal detecting in a field with the landowner’s permission.

He said: “I did not know what it was at first. I just thought is was a modern day cross and put it in my pocket.

“I had found a few coins that day and thought more of them at first then the cross.

“I even wore it for a bit myself as part of a necklace – I just thought it was a modern sadist cross as it had three points on it.

“It was only when I got in touch with Adam Daubney that we thought it could be something very special.”

I’ve no idea what a “sadist cross” is, but you can read the rest of the article here:

Lincolnshire’s only gold ‘Thor’s hammer’ pendant discovered

Metal detector’s rare gold nearly ended up in the bin

A kitchen assistant who dug up a rare piece of gold treasure nearly threw it away.

The gold earring unearthed in an Oxfordshire field is one of the earliest pieces of metalwork in Britain – from the Early Bronze Age, 2,200BC.

Steven Bain, from Ewelme, near Wallingford, stumbled across the treasure while metal detecting in a farmer’s field in Cholsey last October.

The 27-year-old said: “If anything I nearly threw it away. I didn’t realise what it was, it just went straight into my pocket.

Metal detector’s rare gold nearly ended up in the bin

2nd session on new permission

This afternoon I spent a few hours at the new 60 acre pasture permission, this being my second visit to the site. I’d planned to stay for about 4 hours but in the end gave up after two and a half hours.  The ground has been baked solid in last month’s heatwave, so digging is bloody hard work and reinstating the holes properly afterwards even more difficult, and I’m reluctant to dig unless I know I’m not going to leave a mess. Also, my knee is still giving me gyp a full two months after I injured it.

I also had a brief repeat of last session’s wild chattering from the Deus; I’d laid it down while I dug a hole and when I picked it up again it was chattering hysterically. In the past  month a number of other Deus users have reported this phenomenon and worked out that it is caused by interference from the Garret Pro-Pointer since upgrading the detector’s software to v3.0 in June. Once I’d rebooted the detector and ensured that the pro-pointer was kept well away from it, I had no further problems with the chattering.

After the session, while I was changing my footware at the car, the farmer arrived and stopped for a chat. He told me that he believed there had once been a row of cottages in the field across the stream, and that towards the top end of the land he had once found some WWII military stuff including buttons and dogtags. Both areas sound very promising.

Finds: 2 plain buttons, 1 small modern key and 1 cheap modern buckle made from thin metal.